Synopsis

The landmark work on mindfulness, meditation, and healing, now revised and updated after twenty-five yearsStress. It can sap our energy, undermine our health if we let it, even shorten our lives. It makes us more vulnerable to anxiety and depression, disconnection and disease. Based on Jon Kabat-Zinn’s renowned mindfulness-based stress reduction program, this classic, groundbreaking work—which gave rise to a whole new field in medicine and psychology—shows you how to use medically proven mind-body approaches derived from meditation and yoga to counteract stress, establish greater balance of body and mind, and stimulate well-being and healing. By engaging in these mindfulness practices and integrating them into your life from moment to moment and from day to day, you can learn to manage chronic pain, promote optimal healing, reduce anxiety and feelings of panic, and improve the overall quality of your life, relationships, and social networks. This second edition features results from recent studies on the science of mindfulness, a new Introduction, up-to-date statistics, and an extensive updated reading list. Full Catastrophe Living is a book for the young and the old, the well and the ill, and anyone trying to live a healthier and saner life in our fast-paced world.

Praise for Full Catastrophe Living“To say that this wise, deep book is helpful to those who face the challenges of human crisis would be a vast understatement. It is essential, unique, and, above all, fundamentally healing.”—Donald M. Berwick, M.D., president emeritus and senior fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement

“One of the great classics of mind/body medicine.”—Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., author of Kitchen Table Wisdom

“A book for everyone . . . Jon Kabat-Zinn has done more than any other person on the planet to spread the power of mindfulness to the lives of ordinary people and major societal institutions.”—Richard J. Davidson, founder and chair, Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin–Madison

“This is the ultimate owner’s manual for our lives. What a gift!”—Amy Gross, former editor in chief, O: The Oprah Magazine

“I first read Full Catastrophe Living in my early twenties and it changed my life.”—Chade-Meng Tan, Jolly Good Fellow of Google and author of Search Inside Yourself

“Jon Kabat-Zinn’s classic work on the practice of mindfulness to alleviate stress and human suffering stands the test of time, a most useful resource and practical guide. I recommend this new edition enthusiastically to doctors, patients, and anyone interested in learning to use the power of focused awareness to meet life’s challenges, whether great or small.”—Andrew Weil, M.D., author of Spontaneous Happiness and 8 Weeks to Optimum Health

“How wonderful to have a new and updated version of this classic book that invited so many of us down a path that transformed our minds and awakened us to the beauty of each moment, day-by-day, through our lives. This second edition, building on the first, is sure to become a treasured sourcebook and traveling companion for new generations who seek the wisdom to live full and fulfilling lives.”—Diana Chapman Walsh, Ph.D., president emerita of Wellesley College

Excerpt

Chapter Twelve

Glimpses of Wholeness, Delusions of Separateness

Have you ever looked at a dog and really seen it in its total "dogness"? A dog is quite miraculous when you really see it. What is it? Where did it come from? Where is it going? What is it doing here? Why is it shaped the way it is? What is its "view" of things, of the neighborhood? What are its feelings?

Children tend to think about things this way. Their vision is fresh. They see things as if for the first time every time. Sometimes our seeing gets tired. We just see a dog. "If you've seen one, you've seen them all." So we barely see it at all. We tend to see more through our thoughts and opinions than through our eyes. Our thoughts act as a kind of veil preventing us from seeing things with fresh eyes. What comes into view is identified by the thinking, categorizing mind and quickly framed: a dog. This mind actually prevents us from seeing the dog in its fullness. It processes and categorizes the "dog" signal very quickly in our brain and then moves on to do the same to the next perception or thought.

When my son was two years old, he wanted to know if there was a person inside of our dog. It warmed my heart to see through his eyes in that moment. I knew why he was asking. Sage was a real family member. He had his rightful place. His presence was felt, he participated in the psychic space of the house, he was a complete being, as much a "personality" as any of the people in the family. What could I say to him?

Never mind dogs. What about a bird, or a cat, or a tree, or a flower, or a rhinoceros?! They are all quite miraculous really. When you really look at one, you can hardly believe it exists; there it is, this perfect thing, just being what it is, complete in itself. Any imaginative child could have dreamed up a rhinoceros, or an elephant, or a giraffe. But they didn't get here as the product of a child's imagination. The universe is spinning these dreams. They come out of the universe, as do we.

It doesn't hurt to keep this in mind on a daily basis. It would help us to be more mindful. All life is fascinating and beautiful when the veil of our routinized thinking lifts, even for a moment.

There are many different ways of looking at any thing or event or process. A dog is just a dog. In one way there is nothing special about it; at the same time it is extraordinary, even miraculous. It all depends on how you are looking at it. We might say that it is both ordinary and extraordinary. The dog doesn't change when you change the way you look. It is always just what it is. That is why dogs and flowers and mountains and the sea are such great teachers. They reflect your own mind. It is your mind that changes.

When your mind changes, new possibilities tend to arise. In fact everything changes when you can see things on different levels simultaneously, when you can see fullness and connectedness as well as individuality and separateness. Your thinking expands in scope. This can be a profoundly liberating experience. It can take you beyond your limited preoccupations with yourself. It can put things in a larger perspective. It will certainly change the way you relate to the dog.

When you observe things through the lens of mindfulness, whether it be during formal meditation practice or in daily living, you invariably begin to appreciate things in a new way because your very perceptions change. Ordinary experiences may suddenly be seen as extraordinary. This does not mean that they stop being ordinary. Each is still just what it is. It's just that now you are appreciating them more in their fullness.Chapter Thirteen

On Healing

When we use the word healing to describe the experiences of people in the stress clinic, what we mean above all is that they are undergoing a profound transformation of view. This transformation is brought about by the encounter with one's own wholeness, catalyzed by the meditation practice. When we glimpse our own completeness in the stillness of any moment, when we directly experience ourself during the body scan or the sitting or while practicing the yoga as whole in that moment and also as part of a larger whole, a new and profound coming to terms with our problems and our suffering begins to take place. We begin to see both ourselves and our problems differently, namely from a perspective of wholeness. This transformation of view creates an entirely different context within which we can see and work with our problems, however serious they may be. It is a perceptual shift away from fragmentation and isolation toward wholeness and connectedness. With this change of perspective comes a shift from feeling out of control and beyond help (helpless and pessimistic) to a sense of the possible, a sense of acceptance and inner peace and control. Healing always involves an attitudinal and emotional transformation. Sometimes, but not always, it is also accompanied by a major reduction in physical symptoms and by improvement in a person's physical condition.

This transformation of view comes about in many different ways as people immerse themselves in mindfulness-meditation practice. In the stress clinic, sometimes people have sudden and dramatic experiences during meditation that lead them to new ways of seeing. More frequently people speak of moments of simply feeling deeply relaxed or confident. Many times they don't even recognize such experiences at the time they are happening as being particularly important, although they often can't remember having had such an experience before. These incremental transformations can be quite subtle. Yet they can be as profound or even more so than the more dramatic ones. Dramatic or subtle, such shifts in perspective are signs of seeing with eyes of wholeness. Out of this shift in perspective comes an ability to act with greater balance and inner security in the world, especially when encountering stress or pain.

About Jon Kabat-Zinn

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., is the founding director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, as well as professor of medicine emeritus. He lives in the Boston area. Hor Tuck Loonhas been guiding meditation for the past twenty years, drawing parallels from many ancient wisdom teachings and also from his years of experience in the journey of mindfulness. He lives in Malaysia.

About Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, poet, and peacemaker who was nominated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for the Nobel Peace Prize. The author of many books, including Living Buddha, Living Christ, he lives in France in the monastic community known as Plum Village and lectures and gives retreats regularly in North America.

Praise

Praise

“To say that this wise, deep book is helpful to those who face the challenges of human crisis would be a vast understatement. It is essential, unique, and, above all, fundamentally healing.”—Donald M. Berwick, M.D., president emeritus and senior fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement

“One of the great classics of mind/body medicine.”—Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., author of Kitchen Table Wisdom

“A book for everyone . . . Jon Kabat-Zinn has done more than any other person on the planet to spread the power of mindfulness to the lives of ordinary people and major societal institutions.”—Richard J. Davidson, founder and chair, Center for Investigating Healthy Minds, University of Wisconsin–Madison

“This is the ultimate owner’s manual for our lives. What a gift!”—Amy Gross, former editor in chief, O: The Oprah Magazine

“I first read Full Catastrophe Living in my early twenties and it changed my life.”—Chade-Meng Tan, Jolly Good Fellow of Google and author of Search Inside Yourself

“Jon Kabat-Zinn’s classic work on the practice of mindfulness to alleviate stress and human suffering stands the test of time, a most useful resource and practical guide. I recommend this new edition enthusiastically to doctors, patients, and anyone interested in learning to use the power of focused awareness to meet life’s challenges, whether great or small.”—Andrew Weil, M.D., author of Spontaneous Happiness and 8 Weeks to Optimum Health

“How wonderful to have a new and updated version of this classic book that invited so many of us down a path that transformed our minds and awakened us to the beauty of each moment, day-by-day, through our lives. This second edition, building on the first, is sure to become a treasured sourcebook and traveling companion for new generations who seek the wisdom to live full and fulfilling lives.”—Diana Chapman Walsh, Ph.D., president emerita of Wellesley College

“In this brilliant and comprehensive book, Jon Kabat-Zinn shares the depth of his meditation experience and the breadth of its application in the world. Through concise and extremely pragmatic meditation exercises, the wealth of science explaining the benefits, and the many compelling personal stories, Full Catastrophe Living offers the way to a balanced and mindful life.”—Joseph Goldstein, author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening and One Dharma: The Emerging Western Buddhism

“This book challenges each American to slow down and pay attention to the power of their own mind and the impact it has on our physical and emotional health. By actively participating in your own health and wellness you will, by extension, increase the health and wellness of our country. As Jon Kabat-Zinn teaches us how to heal our body and boost our immune system, we can actively contribute to the healing of our body politic and strengthen our nation’s ability to attack the many challenges of our time. Join us in this quiet revolution! It has the potential to transform our country from the inside out, one courageous American at a time.”—Congressman Tim Ryan, 13th district, Ohio, author of A Mindful Nation

Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Preface by Thich Nhat Hanh, Foreword by Joan Borysenko